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Storm on the Horizon: El Niño & PBX Parachute

Boston had record-setting snowfall last winter and it did so in less time than the previous record year 20 years ago. In fact, it wasn’t even until mid-July until the snow drifts from the winter had finally melted. The entire country was so severely beaten down by Mother Nature that there were rolling blackouts and road closures from coast to coast. Everything from Rainpocalypse, which, though laughable, actually did shutdown the typically bustling San Francisco Bay Area to extreme winter weather all the way far south as Dallas, 2014-2015 was uniquely disruptive to businesses across the country. What would you do if you knew that was just the beginning?

The Boy Who Could Stop a Hemisphere

No, this isn’t some revolutionary political activist or a sole student protestor halting a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square, this is El Niño. El Niño is a weather anomaly during which an irregularly warm flow of water in the Pacific Ocean presses up against the shores of North and South America, creating months of unusually extreme weather, including massive amounts of precipitation. Unless you haven’t heard, by the way, there appears to be one of the largest El Niño effects ever recorded brewing right now, too. Yeah, so it’s never too early to begin preparing for another intense winter weather season.

Plan for Tomorrow, Act Today

Wayne Gretsky said that he doesn’t skate to where the puck is, but to where it’s going to be. With the El Niño effect that we are likely to face in the next several months, perhaps an ice-skating quote is more appropriate than we think, too.

How many times have you wished you had recognized the signs of what was happening in your business while it was still on the horizon? Today you can do just that. By preparing yourself now for the literal storm that is brewing off in the distance, you can hedge your business against any weather situation along with all of the other, unforeseen circumstances that could shut down your operations. By building a phone continuity strategy for your business that includes failovers for your office communications systems, you can stay operational through anything that would normally disrupt your business.

PBX Parachute Delivers

VirtualPBX hosted phone systems are already backed by the reliability and flexibility it takes to keep a business up and running whether its employees are at the office or not. We build multiple redundancies into our system so that our customers never have to worry about their office location being inaccessible due to extreme weather. Some companies, however, have their own on-site phone systems that work better for their business needs, but that expose them to the risk of inactivity during any similar type of crisis situation. PBX Parachute is built for them.

By signing-up for PBX Parachute, a company is safeguarding themselves by mirroring their existing telephone system and keeping it on constant stand-by. With this system in place, administrators can either deploy PBX Parachute on command if they have ample time to anticipate a disruption, or they can program a variety of triggering events to automatically enable the redundant system to activate. Furthermore, like all of the VirtualPBX communications solutions, PBX Parachute is fully customizable, so any combination of departments or extensions can be assigned to deploy in-line with your specific business objectives. If you want only sales and support to keep firing from home, you can do that, if you want only administrative lines for internal messaging, you can do that, too. Anything your company needs to focus on the safety and security of your employees and customers is available with PBX Parachute.

Someday Isn’t Actually a Day of the Week

Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today. As a business owner, you never have the luxury of waiting until things are convenient to act, so why should ensuring the safety of your business and employees be any different? Get in touch with our Business Continuity Experts today to see how PBX Parachute can help you rest easy knowing your company will see its way through any storm.